Heskel, Sassoon (Sasson Hesqail)

(396 words)

Born in 1860, Sir Sassoon Heskel (Sasson Hesqail [Eskell]) was the son of Ḥakham Heskel Shlomo David, a student of the renowned Baghdadi rabbi ʿAbd Allāh Somekh. Heskel studied at the Alliance Israélite Universelle School in Baghdad and went on for higher education to Vienna, Berlin, and London, receiving a law degree at the Ottoman law school in Istanbul. He returned to Baghdad in 1885, where he was appointed foreign secretary to the Ottoman governor.

When the Young Turks came to power in 1908, Heskel became a deputy in the Ottoman Parliament, serving there for ten years. In 1909 h…